Sprint Nextel's Xohm unit may establish a management company to develop WiMAX services for Indian operators, and to take advantage of the Indian government's favorable view of the 4G technology.
Xohm is set to merge with Clearwire Corp. to form the "new" Clearwire, which has a $3.2 billion capital investment from companies such as Intel, Google and Comcast. Clearwire shareholders are set to vote on the move today, which was granted regulatory approval by the FCC earlier this month.
"India is an important market and we would look at expanding WiMAX coverage there. We are looking at forming a management company to bring together various stakeholders, including license holders, investors and those with management skills," Xohm's President Barry West said. India is planning a WiMAX spectrum auction in January 2009, and the government has indicated it will auction spectrum in the 2.3GHz-2.4GHz range in blocks of 20MHz each.
Sprint is currently working with Indian operators, including Tata Communications, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Reliance Communications to develop and expand their WiMAX offerings and may also be considering bidding on WiMAX spectrum itself.
For more:
- see this article
- see this article on the spectrum issue
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